The Social Organisation in North-East India in Buddha's Time c15.30

c15.30

If these seṭṭhi families who were united through the common consciousness of rank, through the custom of contracting marriages with their own jâti and preventing mixture with the lower castes, and further, through a common hereditary profession, present an appearance not wholly dissimilar to that of caste, there arise from the great mass of the people other social groups which through the appearance of another factor, external organisation, represent a still more sharply defined unity, namely, the associations of tradesmen and manufacturers comparable to our mediæval guilds.